2 Broke Girls Season 2 Review “And The Cupcake War”

So, tonight on “Big Boobs and Try Hard”- er, make that “2 Broke Girls“- the girls decided to try out for a show called “Cupcake Wars,” which sounds like it could be real even if it isn’t. Hey, they gave a show to “Honey Boo Boo”- stranger things have happened beyond shows about making cupcakes with- ick- “soul food” ingredients. (And I say that as a proud, “soul food”-loving Southerner, mind you.)

As you might have guessed from the episode title, “And the Cupcake Wars,” our girls succeeded, leading to a train wreck of a performance that pitted Caroline and Max- aka “The Muscle and the Hustle,” which sounds like a boxer bout- against two Katrina survivors cooking up “Gumbo-cakes.” Actually, that doesn’t sound bad, come to think of it.

The cupcake show’s producer (Edi Patterson) had a field day with the nicknames for the twosome- see above- but it was an ill-fated battle for “Double D’s and the Ditz,” who, to add insult to injury, forewent an invite to a Polish party from Sophie that could have resulted in some sweet networking and possible future connection-making. Alas, the girls lost out all around, bringing them no closer to their dream, or, as Max put it: “M’Goods couldn’t top that.”

Tonight’s show pulled focus from the nether-regions to focus on the boob level: hey, my eyes are up here, pal! But, hey, have you seen Kat Dennings? Even girls couldn’t help but check all that out if confronted with it. When Caroline wanted to follow Max’s lead and make their t-shirts into ad-hoc V-necks, Max put the kibosh on that noise: “If you have no car, why open the garage?” Indeed. If you saw her at the Emmy’s.well, let’s just say she may not have won an Emmy, but she’d be a shoe-in at the Golden Globes.

Speaking of nether-regions, they may have gone easy on all the vag jokes, but not so much on the guys’ short and curlies. If boob jokes were the main focus of most of the episode, ball jokes were a close second- at one point, Max declared herself to be “Lance Armstrong’s left nut” and pondered whether “balls fart.” Um, eew. “Bitch needs to take it down a notch,” indeed.

All in all, business as usual. The jokes flew fast and furious, and if they were a bit on the pun-ny side, at least a few landed here and there. My favorite exchange was when Caroline queried whether Max had scared away a potential customer, asking: “Did you blow a possible cupcake customer?” Said the Max: “You know I don’t mix business and pleasure.” Zing!

Runner-up: after an exchange in which Max compared her and Caroline to prostitutes, she justified the above by saying: “We’re just letting a few El Caminos ride by because our wrists are sore.” The hootchie jokes continued, as she dubbed Caroline’s whore name to be “Caramel” and Caroline proceeded to try and get all Gangsta B. during filming, at one point rapping (!) and another declaring of their cupcakes: “And by homemade, I mean ho-made!” Lol.

Maybe my favorite moment came during the call-back to Max’s list of things not to say on camera, clichés like “Go girl!” and “We got this!” and so forth. In one fell swoop, Max managed to stuff every last one of her forbidden phrases into one extended rant. “Oh my God, I said them all,” she lamented. Funny stuff.

I love how, even when the material fails them, these two manage to knock it out of the park on sheer charisma alone. Denning and Behrs may not earn their money the easy way, but they sure aren’t above earning it the hard way- these girls know how to sell themselves, to be sure. Or, as Earl (Garrett Morris) put it, “When God closes a door, you work here.” Do they ever.

I mean, would it be nice if the material were a little stronger? Of course. The cast is pretty talented all around, and they know how to sell the material to the best of their abilities, which are considerable. But say what you will about the show and the quality of it, “2 Broke Girls” is nothing if not good for an easy laugh, even if it’s a cheap one.

What did you think? Funny or cringe-inducing? Brilliantly crude or just plain crude? Let me know in the comments!

About The Author

Mark Trammell is the resident entertainment critic at UAB, the University of Alabama at Birmingham, where he is also a Graduate Student and does a vid-cast movie review show. His impossible dream is that "Twin Peaks" will one day be resurrected and pick up where it left off. Until then, he drowns his woes in anything remotely similar, from "Buffy" to "Lost" to "Pretty Little Liars." This has not always been a good thing-cough, "Ringer", cough- but now at least it can help pay the bills.

Totally agree with you about the “If you have no car, why open the garage?” line.

By the way, Cupcake Wars IS a real show– airs on the Food Network. And the depiction in this episode isn’t too far off. I think they did have a southern food theme one ep… and so there were people making savoury “cupcakes” containing pulled pork, collard greens, etc. It’s quite the spectacle. I kind of wish they had Max and Caroline go through the rounds of it, since it gets more and more ridiculous on what they have to do. Besides, I was really curious to find out if Max’s “chicken and waffles” cupcakes turned out tasty at all (at least I assume that’s what those cupcakes at the end of the episode were).

Mark Trammell

Good to know! I meant to look it up, but I have to review 2 shows in that time slot that night & stuff happened, so I was rushing to meet my deadline. It seemed real, but you never know when its on a sitcom!
Pork & collard green cupcakes? Ugh! Doesn’t sound too tempting!